…a boomer muses about life, change, joys, sorrows and freedom from the prison of corporate life.

A Flu Shot…And More

I woke up Monday with one mission in mind – to get a flu shot! I decided to start my search at CVS’s Minute Clinic, since they had been so easy to deal with when I had my pink eye. The good news was that they did have the serum. The bad news was that there were seven people ahead of me. I figured that if they were all getting flu shots, the wait wouldn’t be that long. I figured wrong because, it soon became obvious that there were really sick people there.

Sitting in one of the waiting chairs was a pale woman bent forward, almost curled in on herself. She stood out because she had a wool muffler wrapped around her head beneath her nose. The reason soon became clear as she was wracked with spasms of uncontrollable coughing. She looked so miserable that my heart went out to her. I remember times, waiting for a prescription, when I’ve been so sick that it was all I could do to keep from falling out of the chair. It was really considerate of her to have her mouth covered like that. I wondered if she already had the flu. The only spare chair was next to her, which I thought might be inviting trouble.

So I stood (for a long time,) alternately looking at the magazine rack and a shelf of “As Seen On TV” products. (Did you know they make Snuggies for dogs? Yes, they do! How sad is that?)

Eventually, the young woman right ahead of me on the wait list, who was another “standee,” struck up a conversation. Turns out she was there for eczema on her hands, which looked red, raw and painful. She works at Hardee’s and is always handling money and thus, always using hand sanitizer. She was wondering if CVS took Medicaid because it was the only insurance she had. But that wasn’t the worst part. She was a single mother of three with neither of two fathers contributing to the household. But even that wasn’t the worst part. One of the fathers was gone because she had discovered, when she was nine months pregnant, that he had been abusing her 12-year-old daughter! When I asked her if he had been arrested, she said, “no.” Then she went on to tell me that she was trying to prepare her 12-year-old for a pretty slim Christmas because once the bills were paid each month, they had $20 left. After this barrage of information, I felt like shielding my ears before I broke down in tears. Fortunately, at that moment, her name was called, because I don’t think I could have taken much more of her life story.

But, after I got my shot and left, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I mean, I know I’m blessed, but after an encounter like that, I give extra thanks for my blessings. Suddenly, all those rules I’ve followed all my life seem to have really paid off.

I wonder what it must feel like to live her life? I know some people get themselves into these kinds of situations through bad decisions, but what I’m wondering is – how do they ever get themselves out? She’s a high school dropout, working as a fast-food cashier and trying to provide for a one-year-old, two-year-old and twelve-year-old. How does she begin to change things? How could she go back to school or find another job? Or will she just find another man to help, and end up with a fourth baby? It seems pretty hopeless to me. It also makes me sad.

Well, enough drama for now. And to think – all I wanted was a lousy flu shot!

Stay well,

Advertisements

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

6 Responses

The first thing she could do to help her situation would be to use birth control. Come on, this is the 21st. century. Some people were born to be victims. Okay, the first baby could have been a “mistake”, but a second and third…sorry, my sympathy stops there! Then, to get support for those kids requires taking a day and going to the court house and turning them in to the state. The officials will take it from there and drag their sorry a….s into court and garnish their wages to make them support those kids. She needs to be pro-active and stop being the victim. Life is not hopeless for her unless she sees it that way.

Just Me – You’re right on everything you said. And she obviously made wrong decisions down the line. But still, maybe she wasn’t blessed with brains or common sense or good upbringing the way we were. I’m not making excuses for her, just wondering how she can turn her life around.

She said her twelve-year-old already plans on finishing school, having seen the situation her mother is in. She told me proudly, “She plans to be a massage therapist!”

Why do these women or girls keep having babies they can’t take care of. It does not make sence. Free birth control is out there for anyone that wishes to use it. They are very lazy. They should not even have the first baby if they know they can’t take care of it. I’m sorry, but they are not that stupid, they know the system. I would have been scared to death.

I feel very sad reading this. Not everyone is blessed with the background or the smarts to know they ought to be educated, and even education isn’t a guarantee of anything.

And while I know the commenters are right, people ought not keep getting pregnant, I recently saw a tv show, ‘I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant’, being goofed on on Talk Soup. It’s all about women who deliver babies not even knowing they’re pregnant and there was a clip and this woman who came in with “stomach pain” right there in the E.R. gave birth to a baby in her jeans and didn’t even know it. Inconceivable (no pun intended) and yet true.

I think you have a beautiful heart for being haunted by the woman in CVS, and I believe one can only hope and pray for this women’s daughters because the odds are against them and the cycle tends to continue.